Chinese virologist ‘muzzled’ from revealing the truth about the killer bug
scientist says findings about gene-sequencing hushed up
SIX months ago today, Shi Zhengli received the phone call she had been dreading her entire career.
The virologist, who is based in Wuhan, was out of the city at a conference when she was told to get back to her lab immediately.
Within days she and her team had discovered the coronavirus gene sequence but they were then “muzzled” from revealing the truth about her incredible discovery in the fight against Covid-19.
This fuelled fears of a cover-up by the Chinese authorities, who had failed to share information or issue warnings early on.
Ultimately they couldn’t contain a virus that emerged in Wuhan and then spread around the world, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Chinese journalist Gao Yu said he spoke to Shi during his incarceration in Wuhan, which was locked down for more than two months, and she told him her findings were hushed up.
The journalist explained: “We learned later her institute finished gene-sequencing and related tests as early as January 2 but was muzzled.”
The information about gene sequencing wasn’t made public until a week later.
She identified it as a novel coronavirus and within three days had completed its gene sequencing, finding that it was 96% identical to a virus found in horseshoe bats in Yunnan, a process which can take months if not years.
Amplifying the genetic material of the virus using the polymerase chain reaction technique Zhengli and her team found five of the infected patients had the same genetic sequences found in all coronaviruses.
But even after her incredible discovery, there was one horrifying fear gnawing away at Zhengli – had the virus somehow been leaked from her lab?
In the 16 years she had been working with bats, she had found the subtropical areas of China posed the biggest risk for the coronavirus being transmitted from animals to human – not the centre of the country where Wuhan is located.
She said: “I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China. I remember thinking, ‘Could they have come from our lab?’”
Over the next few worrying days it emerged it did not seem to be a leak and the virus had likely had several previous, small, outbreaks before emerging in Wuhan at one of the city’s controversial wildlife markets.
Zhengli wrote on Chinese social media in February: “I guarantee with my life that the virus has nothing to do with my lab.”
Animals are sold, slaughtered and skinned, as customers browse the stalls in the markets, which have now been closed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
It would also seem there had been just one point where the virus had passed from animals to humans and had then spread around the world. Almost two months after the first cases of the virus emerged in Wuhan, China permanently banned wildlife consumption and trade.
It is estimated this will forced 14 million people out of work and cost the Chinese economy about €60billion.
For Zhengli the discovery of the coronavirus gene sequence is the culmination of more than 16 years work, which has made her one of the world’s leading scientists in her field.
Zhengli is one of the world’s top researchers on coronaviruses and has discovered dozens of deadly Sars-like viruses in bat caves. Her work started in the wake of SARS, which first emerged in 2002 and killed thousands. Since 2004 there have been no known cases of the virus.
INFECTED
She studied samples taken from some of the first people to become infected with the new and thenmysterious respiratory illness in China in December and found it was similar to SARS.
But it did start a global push to learn more about coronaviruses and Zhengli was part of the early teams who travelled to remote locations to study bats in caves.
For months, work on the expedition was relentless with the team waking at dusk to work overnight when the bats had left the caves to hunt for food.
They would collect blood, saliva and stool swabs before grabbing a few hours sleep only to return the following morning to collect urine.
For weeks there was no sign of coronavirus in the DNA that had been collected.
Zhengli was heartbroken. She said: “Eight months of hard work seemed to have gone down the drain. We thought coronaviruses probably did not like Chinese bats.”
Zhengli describes the Wuhan outbreak as a “wake-up call” for the world and work is now taking place around the globe to find a way to prevent another pandemic.
And while she has now quit her life on the frontline of expeditions to find the source of the new strains of the virus, Zhengli has a chilling warning for what’s to come.
She said: “What we have uncovered is just the tip of an iceberg.
“The mission must go on. Batborne coronaviruses will cause more outbreaks and we must find them before they find us.”